


My Head's Under Water But I'm Breathing Fine

by koi_ling



Series: Nothing Is Gonna Take You from My Side [8]
Category: Winner (Band)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Musicians, Polyamory, Unrequited Love, everything comes to light, this sERIES IS ALMOST ENDING UGH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 08:23:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9647942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koi_ling/pseuds/koi_ling
Summary: Seungyoon loves two men in his life. One is Song Mino, the other is Nam Taehyun.





	

**Author's Note:**

> did you watch Seungyoon’s vlive? All of me was my soundtrack for this piece, so no wonder it’s this cheesy lol

Loving Mino is like breathing - it accompanies every moment of his day, even when he’s not aware about it. 

When he opens his eyes after a long night and the sun is peeking through the curtains of his room, when he sits at their table and finds the box of Cheerios between his bowl and Mino’s, when he sees a glimpse of him walking to the bathroom to wash the sleep away. When they find time to eat together and talk, when they don’t talk because they’re too busy, when Seungyoon makes music and thinks of him. When slumber takes a hold of him, and his last thoughts of the day are of the way he has spent it, and some silly funny joke Mino has told him after a shared can of beer.

It’s something quiet, like the rise and fall of his chest, that fills his hours without making any noise or inconvenience. 

Seungyoon doesn't think he's the romantic type, he just happens to have the longest one-sided love in human history. If he could he would make it stop, but he thinks it's also impossible to change his heart after all they went through. Mino is the person he has spent his life with, since he can remember, and even when he says he can be annoyingly clingy or dramatically unfunny (Seungyoon laughs anyways, that’s how doomed it is), he doesn’t mean it wholeheartedly. It's just part of his routine.

If he didn’t care for him, he would have stopped being his friend a long time ago. He wouldn't have poured his heart in all those hours spent together, sometimes in silence or just playing stupid games, other times drinking (now that they're adults, alcohol), or talking, sharing their music or songs they like, going through this movie or that superhero comic. He would have let Mino hate him, would have been harder on him until he left his side, he would have protected himself by losing his best friend to save his own heart. He also would have been unhappier, without his constant support and his smiles and his hugs, and all the genuine acceptance that comes from him. If he didn’t care at all, he wouldn’t have gone through so much just for Mino.

Seungyoon has accepted that is love won’t be reciprocated in this lifetime, maybe not even in the next one, but it still takes time to adjust to the weight of his feelings. It’s like having a world - _another whole universe to keep for himself_ \- that Mino should never reach, another secret to protect with sharp teeth and strong nails, because truth is too dangerous to be revealed. 

Sometimes, he fears that Mino thinks he’s too distant, too lost in thoughts he can’t read, but that’s the way Seungyoon finds room to exhale, inhale, exhale - because loving Mino is like breathing, but it also takes his breath away when it becomes too much.

 

 

Jongin has beautiful tanned skin. It makes him think of Mino, although the similarities don’t go much further. It’s still the first thing he notices, helplessly. 

Seungyoon goes beyond the first impression in search of a mutual sentiment of love - and that happens again and again, and again and again, as he grows older and he meets other people - but they are all nothing more than crushes to him. They don’t last as well as they don’t leave a mark on his heart, too faint and momentary to be remembered.

Without even giving it a thought, it always ends up in the same way. There is something that reminds him of Mino in everyone he lets come closer to him, might it be the smile or the shape of their eyes, or something subtler like their aura. That’s just a fleeting delusion, that dies quickly as the guys he meets become realer as they get acquainted. It always doesn’t last too much.

Taehyun is just as tall and bulky as Mino, and Seungyoon can’t help thinking how it would feel to hug him. He’s fascinated by so many things of Taehyun that he quickly forgets that similarity, and loses himself in the admiration for the new member of his band. 

Taehyun is amazing, the way they work when they try a new song, the way their voices fit like two pieces of the same puzzle, their harmonisations bringing a new level of depth to Seungyoon’s music. He also composes, songs they can play together as Jinwoo and Jaehyo hyung follow. 

Seungyoon finds himself in love - and this is different, this is not at all like breathing, this doesn’t go unnoticed, this burns all the oxygen in his lungs and leaves him wheezing for more. 

Seungyoon doesn’t want to follow his desires and put everything in danger, but Taehyun is too tempting to resist. Even more, he’s not the type that will be rational over his emotions and act just based on what’s right and what’s wrong - he takes and takes without asking, and burns even brighter of a passion that Seungyoon doesn’t know how to quench.

 

 

Seungyoon thinks it will last. He hasn’t loved any other of his exes like he loves Taehyun, that’s for sure. Of course he’s not Mino, but that doesn’t mean he can’t love him with all his heart. Seungyoon finds people trying to defining everything bothersome, especially when he can’t even determine his own feelings in a classic way - if it had to follow the rules, then he should be loving Taehyun and him only, and everything would fit perfectly.

It doesn’t matter, he thinks, because his love for Mino will never grow in something else, and that means that his heart is at peace with that side of his life. He can focus on Taehyun more, love him in all the ways he can’t openly love Mino.

He thinks it makes perfect sense, and he thinks he’s happy - he _is_ happier than he could remember, for a certain while. The band is doing great, Taehyun is a wonderful boyfriend, always strong in showing his affection, a spectacular lover in bed too, and he and Mino are still the best friends in the world. 

He thinks it will last for a very long time, and that's why he talks about it with Mino. He is upset to meet his reluctance at the news but he thinks he'll talk him into it with time, and for a moment Seungyoon thinks he manages to. But then everything goes wrong - Mino leaves his side without explaining the deafening silence between them, and Taehyun’s jealousy becomes more evident as time goes by. 

 

 

Loving Taehyun leaves him breathless. The sparkle of passion Taehyun has for everything is even stronger when he likes someone, and Seungyoon succumbs to it. It makes him set into fire, it makes him stupid, it makes him irrational, it makes him love even more, with a violence he didn’t know he had.

But he can’t help the feeling he has for Mino, and for him Mino will always be the first person to contact for every news that happens in his life, the first person to know they got a gig in a big famous place, the first person that should listen to their demos. Mino is his center, his anchor to the ground when he feels he’s flying away, carried by the wind of notes that crowd his mind. It comes natural to go to him for such things, it comes natural to be at ease in his presence.

Seungyoon doesn’t know how to answer to Taehyun’s jealousy - he should deny it all, pretend Mino is not that important to him, that he doesn’t need him as much as he needs Taehyun? Seungyoon doesn’t like lying, he just omits some truths when it’s necessary.

He tries to make it sound as it’s not as vital as it seems - it’s not that serious, it’s nothing at all - but things get worse with time. Mino leaves his side for his own reasons, and Taehyun becomes difficult to control as Seungyoon is devastated by Mino’s silence. 

Maybe he should try and mend everything broken by just being his usual self. Be smart about it, be careful in every decision he takes to make everything fit together once more. Maybe he should just choose Taehyun and give his back to Mino, and find happiness in someone that will love him for sure instead of someone that will never feel such things for him. Maybe he should just give up on them, for good, and reassure Taehyun that no one will make his heart beat the way he does. They’re just friends, anyways.

That sounds like a fine solution, he thinks. Seungyoon doesn’t follow it.

 

 

_“You think about him more than you think about me… who are you dating again? Am I really your boyfriend or am I just someone you sleep with? Why it’s always Mino, Mino, Mino? Do you think I didn’t notice how much time you spend at the phone, waiting for his call?”_

_“I am done with you and your band, Kang Seungyoon”._

 

 

Seungyoon is amused by how easy it comes to others to choose what to do with their lives - and their heart - when it’s hurting too much. They go away, Taehyun, Mino, they all go away when it’s too hard, they go away very loudly or very silently, and at the end of the day he’s the one who is left behind, the one who is breaking apart the most. 


End file.
